Embedded Robotics: Mobile Robot Design and Applications with Embedded Systems

摘要

he EyeBot controller and mobile robots have evolved over more than a decade.This book gives an in-depth introduction to embedded systems and autonomous mobile robots, using the EyeBot controller (EyeCon) and the EyeBot mobile robot family as application examples.This book combines teaching and research material and can be used for courses in Embedded Systems as well as in Robotics and Automation.We see labs as an essential teaching and learning method in this area and encourage everybody to reprogram and rediscover the algorithms and systems presented in this book.Although we like simulations for many applications and treat them in quite some depth in several places in this book, we do believe that students should also be exposed to real hardware in both areas, embedded systems and robotics.This will deepen the understanding of the subject area and of course create a lot more fun, especially when experimenting with small mobile robots.The original goal for the EyeBot project has been to interface an embedded system to a digital camera sensor (EyeCam), process its images locally in realtime for robot navigation, and display results on a graphics LCD.All of this started at a time before digital cameras came to the market -in fact the EyeBot controller was one of the first "embedded vision systems".As image processing is always hungry for processing power, this project requires somewhat more than a simple 8-bit microprocessor.Our original hardware design used a 32-bit controller, which was required for keeping up with the data delivered by the image sensor and for performing some moderate image processing on board.Our current design uses a fast state-of-the-art embedded controller in combination with an FPGA as hardware accelerator for low-level image processing operations.On the software application level (application program interface), however, we try to stay compatible with the original system as much as possible.The EyeBot family includes several driving robots with differential steering, tracked vehicles, omnidirectional vehicles, balancing robots, six-legged walkers, biped android walkers, and autonomous flying and underwater robots.It also comprises simulation systems for driving robots (EyeSim) and underwater Preface VI robots (SubSim).EyeBot controllers are used in several other projects, with and without mobile robots.We use stand-alone EyeBot controllers for lab experiments in a course in Embedded Systems as part of the Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Mechatronics curriculum, while we and numerous other universities use EyeBot controllers together with the associated simulation systems to drive our mobile robot creations. AcknowledgmentsWhile the controller hardware and robot mechanics were developed commercially, several universities and numerous students contributed to the EyeBot software collection.The universities involved in the EyeBot project are as follows: